MY BLOG JANUARY 18, 2017

So for those of you jealous of pro cyclists for being able to jet off to the “sun” on winter training camps, spare a thought for the GB track boys when we woke up on Tuesday to be greeted by this on the roads of Majorca:

To be fair, you won’t catch me complaining. As I’ve said many times before, I have my dream job and the best one in the world, being a professional cyclist, so I’m not going to moan about a little snow but, to be honest, if I’d know what it was going to be like, I could have stayed in Manchester where at least it wasn’t snowing.

That said, my mood wasn't helped by suffering a puncture on that same ride and giving myself a blister when I made a mess of changing it!

Shows you I'm out of practice and doing the important things in life - like swapping inner tubes.

In all honesty though, the weather was good the rest of the time so there really are no complaints about our week-long camp. It was a chance for the current team pursuit squad of myself, Kian Emadi, Steven Burke, Chris Latham and Ollie Wood to get in a block of good quality training.

It was a little tough mentally, being away from family and friends at home straight after the holidays, and I must admit this camp seemed to drag a little. Netflix received plenty of attention as I went through season six of “Suits” - which is very topical at the moment given the actress involved - and finally caught up with "Dexter."

There was also plenty of chance to catch up on another of my hobbies - coffee!

As a lot of you will know, cyclists can be obsessed with coffee making, and drinking of course, and I'm no exception. I even take my own machine with me on training camps like this one. I must do a blog on coffee at some point because a lot of people ask me about it but, for now, this is my new favourite. I's an Ethiopian called Kelloo. While here i have been brewing with my aeropress. I tired it as an espresso at home and it was massive hit of Orange Marmalade.

On the bike, the countdown is now on to the World Track Champs in Hong Kong in April so we are stepping up training and intensity.

The flurry of snow we got was also convenient given that I’m heading to Berlin today to ride the Six Day there with Chris Latham. Apparently, they have a lot of snow in that part of Germany at the moment so there will be no road riding, although given how hard those Six Days are, it’ll be full on just coping with the racing.

Hopefully, we can pick up a couple of wins like we did in the London Six Day and hopefully we're not unlucky with illness, like Chris was in the Amsterdam Six Day because these are fun events, and an important part of our winter training programme.